Currency and Exchange Rates While House Sitting Internationally

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Disclaimer: This reflects our own experience and general research, not financial advice. Banking products, fees, and terms change. Confirm current details directly with any provider before relying on them.

Managing money across a dozen currencies sounds more complicated than it actually is, once you have the right setup. After 20 sits across 12 countries, here's what we've actually learned, including a mistake that cost us real money before we fixed it.

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We've also written separately about managing mail and banking without a fixed address, which covers which banks we actually use and why. This article goes deeper into the money side specifically: currencies, exchange rates, and the habits that actually save you money.

Track Everything in Your Own Currency, Not the Local One

Caro and I track all our spending in euros, our home base currency, regardless of what we're actually spending in country to country. When we were in Australia, we tracked in AUD. In Thailand, in Thai baht. But the reference point was always converted back to euros in our heads, because that's the currency we actually earn and think in.

This matters more than it sounds. If you try to judge whether something is expensive purely in the local currency, without converting back to what you're used to, you lose all sense of scale. A number that looks reasonable in one currency can be wildly expensive once converted, or the opposite. Knowing your spending in your own currency is the only way to actually understand whether you're overspending, wherever you happen to be.

A travel card genuinely helps with this. We use N26, and it's connected to our phones so every purchase in a foreign currency shows an instant conversion back to euros. No mental math, no guessing, the real number is right there the moment you spend.

The Mistake That Cost Us Real Money

Years ago, before I properly understood this, I was using a normal Australian bank card while spending in Europe. It felt harmless, a small percentage taken on each transaction. But after a hundred or two hundred transactions, that small percentage adds up to a genuinely significant amount of money, quietly, without ever feeling like a single big loss.

The fix was simple: get a proper travel card. Something costing $10 a month, sometimes even free, that includes real exchange rates and no foreign transaction fees. When you consider what a standard bank card actually costs you in fees over months of constant spending, a dedicated travel card pays for itself many times over.

We use N26 throughout Europe and have found Revolut works genuinely well outside it too, both are online banks, which also means no branch visits and no waiting on hold with a bank that's flagged a transaction as suspicious just because you're somewhere new.

The ATM Trap: Always Choose Local Currency

This is worth getting right, because it's easy to get backwards. When an ATM or card terminal asks whether you'd like to be charged in the local currency or your home currency, always choose the local currency. It feels counterintuitive, seeing the number in your own currency feels safer, but that "convenience" is exactly where the bad exchange rate is hiding. This is called dynamic currency conversion, and the rate offered when you accept your home currency is almost always worse, sometimes significantly so, than what your own bank or card provider would give you by converting it themselves.

The same principle applies to Euronet-style ATMs specifically, the ones that pop up everywhere in tourist areas offering an immediate conversion rate. They're not technically scamming you, but their rates are consistently worse than a proper bank ATM. If you have a choice, withdraw from an actual bank's ATM rather than a standalone currency-exchange machine, and always decline the "pay in your home currency" option when it's offered.

Cash vs Card: Carry a Backup

Most places we've been have leaned heavily toward card, it's simply more convenient and increasingly the default almost everywhere. But we've hit real exceptions, parts of Italy and Greece in particular, where cash was genuinely required and card wasn't an option at all.

Our rule now: always carry some cash, roughly €100-200. It's not about distrust of card payments, it's about not getting caught out, ordering food or paying for something and only discovering afterward that card isn't accepted. That's a genuinely awkward situation to be in, and a small cash buffer avoids it entirely. Think of it as emergency backup, not your primary method of paying.

The Balkans and Non-Euro Currencies

Driving the T4 through the Balkans meant crossing through several different currencies in a fairly short stretch, but in practice, it was far less complicated than we expected. Most places we stopped accepted euros directly as a secondary currency, even outside the Eurozone officially. Combined with a proper travel card working reliably almost everywhere, we never felt like we needed to hold or manage multiple physical currencies at once. It's a genuinely digital-first world now, and that makes multi-currency travel far simpler than it would have been even a decade ago.

How We Split Costs as a Couple

We used to use an app for tracking and splitting shared expenses. These days, it's simpler than that, we just alternate. I pay one day, Caro pays the next, and over time it balances out to roughly even without either of us tracking it precisely. We're both working toward the same shared future, so the exact day-to-day split has stopped feeling like something worth calculating closely.

For a couple earlier in a relationship or wanting more structure, a joint travel account is worth considering, both people contributing an agreed amount, spending comes out of the shared account automatically, and neither person needs to calculate or settle anything after the fact. It removes the mental overhead entirely, which matters more than it sounds like once you're managing expenses across a dozen different currencies at once.

Conclusion

Managing money across many currencies isn't complicated once the basics are in place: track everything in your own reference currency, use a proper travel card instead of a standard bank account, always choose local currency over home currency when a terminal asks, and keep a small cash buffer for the places that still need it. The rest, splitting costs, adjusting to new currencies, tends to sort itself out once those habits are in place.

Caro and I have completed 20 house sits across 12 countries, driven 19,000km across Europe in our 1998 VW T4, and saved over $26,500 in accommodation costs over three years of house sitting. If you have questions about managing money while traveling like this, DM us @housesittersguide, we answer everyone.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What currency should I track my spending in while traveling?

  Your own home or earning currency, not the local one. Converting everything back to a currency you actually understand the value of is the only reliable way to judge whether you're overspending, regardless of how many different currencies you pass through.

• Should I pay in local currency or my home currency at an ATM or card terminal?

  Always choose the local currency. Paying in your home currency, known as dynamic currency conversion, comes with a worse exchange rate, even though it feels more convenient or transparent in the moment.

• Do I need a special bank account to travel long-term?

  Not strictly, but a dedicated online travel card like N26 or Revolut genuinely pays for itself by avoiding the foreign transaction fees a standard bank account charges on every purchase, which adds up significantly over months of travel.

• Should I carry cash while house sitting internationally?

  Yes, a small amount, around €100-200, as backup. Most places accept card, but some genuinely don't, and getting caught without a card-accepting option after ordering something is a situation worth avoiding entirely.

• How do couples split expenses while traveling across multiple currencies?

  Informal alternating, one person paying one day, the other the next, works well and tends to balance out over time. A joint travel account is a more structured option if you'd rather not track it at all.

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